The University of Canberra is considering merging its five faculties into just two or three, but the vice-chancellor has promised there will be no forced job losses as a result of the restructure.
Vice-chancellor Bill Shorten said the university was looking at ways to reduce duplication across the university and keep costs down.
"We don't want to be tied up with duplicating administrative or bureaucratic processes when we could use our skills and capabilities of our staff to be able to deliver more teaching and research," he said.
"Are we meeting the needs of the future workforce of Canberra and the region in 10 years and 20 years' time, or do our faculties describe the best thinking of 10 and 20 years ago?"
The university currently has five faculties: arts and design, business, government and law, education, health, and science and technology.
The faculty of health is the largest in the university. Two new models have been proposed to create either two or three faculties of similar sizes.
The university ran surveys and workshops between March and May and received 80 submissions from staff about the future of the five faculties.
By August, a group of senior management will make a recommendation as to which option to pursue which will then go to the university council.
The new model would be implemented by the beginning of next year.
Mr Shorten said the university was not using external consultants as part of the reforms.
"Our work showed us that universities of comparable sizes... tend to have fewer faculties these days.
"We're not saying we want to be like every other university, but on the other hand, if there are lessons from other universities we're foolish not to look at them."
The university made about 200 positions redundant in 2025 after the university made a loss of $41 million in 2024.
The university has told staff there will be no forced redundancies as part of the current faculty restructure.
Mr Shorten said there was no view on whether there would be voluntary redundancies as part of any reforms but that the aim would be to redeploy staff into other roles.
"The vast majority of schools and all the disciplines are not really going to be affected in terms of the front-facing student experience.
"In terms of some of the senior positions across five faculties, there'll be a job for everyone, but whether or not we need everyone doing the same job that they once did, that's another issue."
He said the faculty reforms were about making changes during a period of calm rather than waiting for a crisis.
